Come Back To Me
by Punslinger
Summary: Post-Destroy ending Earthborn Paragon Shepard struggles with his injuries, PTSD, and survivor guilt, relying on his oldest and closest friends to carry him through. Intended as an "Earn Your Happy Ending" fic for those who played as Paragons but felt they had no choice but Destroy despite the consequences. Tali romance, Garrus bromance. T for language and suicidal themes.
1. Chapter 1

_"__There comes a time when one must rest from war and conflict."_

-Thane Krios

He fought against nausea at the ever-present smell of smoke and week old bodies, sickly-sweet with an acrid aftertaste on his tongue. The ground rumbled beneath his feet, boots finding uneasy footing on the crumbled ruin of what had been a large, official-looking building. Library, maybe. The low metallic groans of the Enemy carried through the air from all directions, first sounding from what was left of downtown, then behind him toward the bridge. Crimson flashes strobed through the night; murderous lightning flashing forth and consuming all that it touched.

Ahead, there was a flash of white in all the black and grey.

He called out, his voice hoarse and ragged. Smoke and plaster dust made the air almost unbreathable, more like some half-terraformed backwater than Earth. The child ran from him again, sweatshirt billowing out in the wind of his speed. He pursued as though through molasses, his head pounding as waves of dull agony washed over him. There was a grinding whine in his ears, and a terrible Presence squeezing as surely as a hand atop his skull. He felt a trickle of blood slip from his nose.

There was a faint crackling, a metallic groan, and a thin line spidered across his vision. Then another. His head swam, and he sank to his haunches, sitting on something. A chair. The air rippled in front of him. The darkness of night gave way to the blackness of unknown abysses, and he saw something impossibly vast move in the distance. He looked down to his air gauge. Empty. So that was it. Down below the ocean, with the monsters who had created his Enemy eons ago, fighting for his own mind, running out of air. He gritted his teeth, blood from his nose leaking into his mouth. He felt them again, pawing at his mind, pushing on his meager defenses with a terrible inevitability. There were no weapons on the diving mech capable of harming these monsters, but there was no reason he had to let them win. He spat the blood out of his mouth, and raised the Carnifex pistol. Aimed at the spot of blood on the canopy.

At the horrified face of Admiral Anderson, the closest thing to a father he'd ever known. _No no no no_

The power conduit holding back the terrible power of the Catalyst.

The canopy shattered with the bullet, and the pressure on his mind gave way to an instant of shocking pressure all over his body before oblivion took him.

He opened his eyes. Shepard was immersed in florescent light and white sheets, painkillers making everything a little distant, otherworldly. For a while he'd thought it was the Heaven he'd never believed in. Then he had awakened at last to pain, and a monstrous sense of insurmountable guilt. His nerves had seemed ablaze, dazzling and acid, his bandage-swathed hands shaking weakly. The left side of his face was its own universe of horror; molten seas of liquid torment surged there beneath the gauze. He'd wondered if this was Hell, then, an eternity of burning agony and contemplation of the magnitude of his failure. But no Hell he'd ever heard of plugged the damned into a half-dozen machines to sustain their bodies. So. Not Heaven, not Hell, but merely life. In spite of everything, life.

He lay in the hospital bed at the far end of the Citadel, in one of the larger undamaged buildings re-purposed for triage. He lay quietly, arms free from the restraints for three days running, and thought about dying.

Disembodied voices came to him every now and again, but he understood them to be mere memory and so avoided the mercy of losing his mind. Hackett, firm in his conviction. _He's wrong. _Dead_ Reapers is how we win this. _Tali, her heart breaking. _I _have_ a home_. Anderson, speaking the words he had never known he needed to hear so desperately. _You did good, son._

He heard the voices of his caretakers, as he had off and on for some time. Possibly weeks. He lay between the crisp sheets, listening to the faint beeping of the machines. There were fewer now that he was out of intensive care, but the machines would be with him for another month. Or so the doctors said. Regulating his temperature, applying dermal gel to his ravaged face and hands, administering painkillers. He had tried withholding those, partly out of fear of addiction. He'd seen enough of the Tenth Street Reds get caught up on the wrong end of the vice trade to want to go that route. Of course, the other reason he held off relieving his pain was the same reason they had him on twenty-four hour psych watch.

Images flashed through his mind. Doctors, nurses wrestling with his bandaged hands, holding them down, strapping them to the bed. Sweat streaming down their faces, muscles bulging with effort as they held him down. His own arms straining. Tearing through the straps, tearing at the tubes and wires connecting him to life. A splash of crimson from the IV needle as it clattered to the floor, analgesic dribbling from the tip. He screamed something almost unintelligible about not deserving painkillers before they'd given him a jab in the arm that had granted him dreamless sleep.

His cheeks were wet again. He'd grown up with a horror of tears, the unthinking machismo of the street cemented in the military discipline of his late adolescence, but these left him more baffled than shamed. He hadn't even been feeling particularly sad. Numb, more than anything. He was often numb, an almost pleasant distance between himself and the world. He wiped at his face, still listening to the voices.

The doctors were talking to someone, their voices insipid with forced calm. Silhouettes drifted across the frosted glass door, wringing hands in a caricature of concern. A memory floated through- hands wrung not from concern but merely from nerves. _It signals a desire for... um... intimacy._ A spike of pain lanced through the empty sense of distance and his eyes blurred with tears once more. He blinked them back. He started to lose interest in the voices and their display of false compassion, but something in their words caught his attention. "..._must_ understand that the Commander has been through an unimaginable ordeal, and he may not be himself."

Shepard felt his mouth twitch in a weak smile. If only. He could feel what was left of his face, the slack blankness of it through the muted emotions, the thousand-yard stare that had crept up on him over the past year. He could wish to be someone else, but wishing would not make it so.

"Not himself? Like hell." The voice was low, resonant, familiar. _No. I can't-_ "Shepard's been through 'ordeals' before and they just piss him off. I need to see him. Let me in." Another silhouette appeared, tall, barrel-chested even without his armor. Unmistakable.

Panic fluttered in his chest. After what he'd done, how could he possibly face Garrus?

The smaller silhouette spread its arms. "I know you're his friend-"

"You're damned right I am."

"-And I'm _certain_ he will want to see you too, once he is feeling better, but you must understand, the Commander is experiencing significant post-traumatic stress. He... he keeps insisting we try him as some kind of war criminal. He's tried twice to resign his commission but Admiral Hackett is ignoring that for now." His voice dropped to a whisper. "He seems to be blaming himself, you see. For all the deaths."

No. Not all the deaths. He closed his eyes . Only some of them.

Garrus lay a hand on the doctor's shoulder, gentle but insistent. "Then you'll understand why I need to see him _now_, and not later. Excuse me." He limped past the doctor and into the room, quietly shutting the door behind him. The turian stepped into the light, big as ever and twice as cocky despite the cast on his leg. He wore civilian garb, the vaguely ridiculous soft jumpsuit turians seemed to favor. "Shepard."

He didn't deserve the company of his best friend, but here he was. He didn't know if the man, the best he had ever known, would be able to bear his presence once he knew everything. In spite of his guilt, in spite of his self-loathing, Shepard felt a surge of feeling threatening to spill over and he passed a hand over his face. "Garrus. I'm glad to see you."

Garrus pulled a chair alongside the bed and sat backward in it, hands dangling over the back, thickly-wrapped leg jutting straight out. "I told that moron you would be. Doctors. Only ever met two who were worth a damn. You look good, considering I hear they pulled enough shrapnel out of you to commission a new Alliance dreadnought." He looked at Shepard for a moment, pondering. Then his head drooped, his mandibles twitching slightly. "Ah, hell, Shepard. I... I'm sorry."

Shepard dropped his hand, bandages rustling on the bed linens. "You're what?"

Garrus clenched his hands on the back of the chair. "I'm sorry. If I hadn't... if I had managed to pull it together, I might have made it to that beam with you. You were counting on me. I could have helped. I..."

Shepard shook his head slowly. "Garrus, no. I _was_ counting on you, and you came through. You got Tali out of there." He swallowed. "She doing okay? The doctors wouldn't tell me anything until I broke an IV, then they flew in Doc Chakwas so she could tell me in person she was going to live." He'd broken a lot more than an IV, come to think of it. "She didn't have a lot of details, though, and I didn't want to keep her from the relief efforts. I made a real ass of myself."

"She took a few bad hits, some suit ruptures. I won't lie to you Shepard, it was close. Maybe almost as close as you. Karin though... she wouldn't give up on her. Must have gone through the entire stock of antiseptics just prepping the medbay for surgery." He took a deep breath. "You were the first thing she asked about. I didn't like having to lie to her. But... it's the damnedest thing, Shepard. I told her you were okay, that the search and rescue teams had found you. Our comms weren't even up, and I figured you for a dead man. Everyone did. But I told her what I thought she needed to hear. She reached over, and touched my hand, and said, 'Believe it.'"

Shepard reached over and gave the turian's hand a quick squeeze despite the pain. "And you did."

Garrus pulled his hand away, eyes sliding away from his gaze. "That's the thing. I didn't. I gave up on you, and I'm sorry. I should've known better. We had a ceremony. For EDI, and Mordin, and Thane, and Legion. Sort of a funeral. We put EDI's name up on the wall, and we were all set to put yours at the top. But Tali wouldn't do it. She wasn't a day out of bed, but she found the strength to pry it out of Liara's hands. Said we weren't going to give up on you." He slowly raised his eyes. "And she was right."

Shepard held his gaze, then raised his hand. After a moment, the turian clasped it. "You don't owe me an apology, Garrus. You got her out of there. You got the Normandy out of there. You did everything I asked of you, even though it burned you up. I couldn't ask for a better friend." His hand fell to the bed again. "It's you who deserves better."

Garrus skewered him with a critical glare. "Bullshit."

Shepard felt the despair rising, a black tide that would drown everything else if he'd let it, fought to keep focused. "You don't understand. You don't know what happened on the Citadel."

His friend leaned back in against the wall. "Then tell me."

_The Catalyst stood before him, a nightmare realized. Ancient, powerful, cold. Evil. The driving force behind the Reapers, behind dizzying eons of murder and despair. And it mocked him. Everything about it, down to the very face it wore, seemed calculated to put him off, to find his weaknesses and pry at them, to pour salt in his wounds and laugh at his screams. Too sure in its logic to be swayed or talked down, as even the Illusive Man had been swayed in the end. Too powerful to be stopped through any conventional force. The child's face looked him in the eye, and sneered. It had him, and it knew it._

_It offered him power beyond imagining, control over the very horrors who threatened to destroy everything he had ever loved. Everyone. He closed his eyes, and saw the sleek black forms gliding through the black toward Tuchanka, toward Rannoch. All his work, Mordin's work, Legion's sacrifice, the quarian victory, for nothing if he allowed them to continue. And he was being offered the ability to stop them, to turn them from destruction to rebuilding. He could use them to defend instead of to destroy, to lead the peoples of the galaxy into a future free from terror. He could annihilate the slave trade. He would be more powerful than any human in all history. _

_More powerful than any human _should_ be. _

_Even if the offer were in earnest and not some last-ditch attempt to indoctrinate him, Shepard could not take it. Perhaps he _would_ use the Reapers as a force for good, for order, for justice. At first. But as time wore on, and his friends died, and the species he cared about died or changed beyond recognition, would he still be the same, well-intentioned master? Even if his personality survived the translation to some kind of machine-borne godhood, would it survive the eons of power? He had a vision of the Illusive Man, standing at the control console, assuming direct control over all the Reaper armada, and shuddered. He could still hear the voice of Father MacAllister all those years ago, as he shoveled hot soup into a bowl for another starving street punk. "What does it profit a man to gain the whole world... if he lose his soul?"_

_And so he had rejected the offer of control. With all of his being, he rejected it._

"So they were still trying to indoctrinate you, even at the end." There was no doubt whatsoever in Garrus' voice, and Shepard found himself envying that conviction. "What did you do?" Garrus asked.

He marveled briefly that he could read his friend's face so well. All the old drill instructors had called the turians "skullheads" with good reason. But the face- worn and scarred and covered in plates as it was -was a good one. He'd leaned on them all, of course, but Garrus had been his rock. He could hardly remember a time when he'd had the least hesitation trusting him with his life, and the lives of his Alliance crewmates. A lifetime ago, just an ignorant kid from the streets who lucked into glory by being in the right place during the Skyllian blitz. Cited for valor and offered a good assignment aboard a prototype frigate.

Then, Eden Prime and everything that had come after. First a turian, then a krogan, a quarian, and an asari. Aliens, like the batarians. He'd been a fool, but wise enough to keep his mouth shut until the 'alien' members of his team proved themselves the best people in the galaxy, the best friends anyone could ever want. With their help he'd built a legacy of peace, become the paragon of all humanity had to offer because these _aliens_ had brought out the very best in him.

Shepard looked out the window. Stared at the unblinking stars, the distant flicker as shuttles moved between the ships of the combined fleet, found the distant bulk of the SSV Everest. "I asked myself what Anderson would do. And I shot the first thing I saw that looked important." Garrus grinned at that. "It overloaded the Crucible, let its energy loose in some kind of synthetics-destroying wave, just like the... Catalyst said it would. Then it exploded in my face. And the Reapers died." He closed his eyes. "And the geth died. And EDI died. Just as that _thing_ said they would. And I pulled the trigger."

Garrus was quiet for a long moment. "So. That's what this is about."

"Yeah." Part of it, anyhow. "You were right, Garrus. In the end, it came down to cold calculus. Kill ten million here to save twenty million there. Kill one species here to save five there. Kill one friend to save a dozen. I murdered them, Garrus. The geth, and EDI. I murdered them when I blew that power coupling, and I _knew_ I was doing it." And so his legacy of peacemaking, of compassion, had turned to ashes.

Garrus scoffed with a grunt, low in his throat. "Listen to yourself, Shepard. Murder one species- and I wouldn't call it murder, it was a sadistic choice you should never have had to make -and _save_ all the others. You stopped the Reapers. You _did_ it. You saved us all, ended thousands of years of bitter history. Hell, because of you, there are krogan on Palaven right now, _helping_ my people." He took a breath and leaned in close, his voice softer than Shepard had ever heard. "Look, Shepard, it's like with Sidonis. I thought I knew what I wanted, but you knew me well enough to talk me off that ledge. I wasn't looking for justice, I was looking for revenge. It would have destroyed me. Hell I'd have probably ended up like Massani, a bitter old merc with half a face and not even half a conscience. But you came through."

"So now I'm going to come through for you, you understand? Keep talking to you until you remember what everyone else _knows_ about you- Commander Shepard _doesn't_ give up. Sure, you've done more than anyone. You've earned a rest, and you'll get one. But you're not going to do anything stupid, and you're not going to touch that IV anymore. Because you don't. Give. Up." He sighed. "So, you had to make a tough call. The toughest I've ever heard of. It almost cost you everything, and it saved us all. _I'm_ a good friend? You did what _everyone _asked you to do, even knowing the price you'd pay to your own conscience. _No one_ could ask for a better friend than that."

One of the machines was giving off some kind of alarm. The doctors opened the door, distracting Garrus long enough for Shepard to cover his face again. The last thing he wanted was to lose it right in front of him. Almost as bad as breaking down in front of Wrex would be. The lead doctor- Tanaka, Shepard thought his name was -began shooing the turian from the room. "His vitals are spiking a bit. The Commander must _rest_ now, you understand. You can visit again tomorrow... if he likes." Shepard merely nodded behind his hand, not trusting his voice. "Good then. Tomorrow, mister Vakarian."

Garrus pushed through for a moment, reaching for and squeezing his other hand. "I'll be back tomorrow, Shepard. And the day after that, and the day after that. And _every_ day after until they let you out of here."

The doctors crowded around him, adjusting his medication. The pain subsided, and he slipped away.


	2. Chapter 2

_At first he thought it was a dying dream, a final memory of his prior resurrection. Faces drifted above, brows knit with concentration or concern. But the faces were too ordinary, blemished and uneven, not the uncanny designed beauty of his last savior. Whatever this was, it was more than a memory of Project Lazarus. So he lived, somehow. There was no pain, only a clinical knowledge that he was breathing despite the ruin of his body. Muffled voices faded to nothingness, and his vision dimmed again. He might be dying, after all. He thought that might be for the best. He felt a sinking, a slow spreading coolness, and knew death would take him if he allowed it. It would be so easy, to let go. To give in, to find peace from his screaming conscience, from a lifetime of war and death. And he nearly let himself go. But he clenched a fist burned black at the knuckles and held on to one thought even as darkness rose to claim his mind._

"_Come back to me_."

There was a hand wrapped gently around his, a familiar sense of communion and intimacy. He muttered something, his throat dry, his voice still fuzzy from the painkillers.

"No, Shepard, not Tali." Liara, tears standing in her eyes, a bittersweet smile on her lips at his mistake.

He shook his head to clear some of the fog, noticing that the bandages were gone from the left side of his face. There was a tugging sensation whenever he changed his expression, like something was out of place. "Liara? I'm glad to... hunh." His voice was faint, croaking. He ran his tongue over his teeth. "How... how's my face?"

She shook her head, chuckling. "I don't think she'll mind."

"Not... not what I asked." There was a tube poking into his mouth. He sucked on it briefly and got a bit of water. Much better.

"Well, you had about a hundred field sutures holding your cheek on, and the burns were pretty bad. But the dermal gel is working nicely. You'll probably have scars for a few years. No worse than Garrus looked when you came to see me on Ilium, really." She patted his wrist as he laughed silently, chest aching with every breath. "Of course, that's my opinion. I'm only your _former_ girlfriend, after all. Tali's still recovering on the Tonbay. Probably giving Admiral Raan no end of grief until she releases her and gives her a shuttle. I'm... sorry to disappoint you." There was something in her eyes, a ghost of old pain. Then it was gone, leaving only concern.

Williams' words rose in his mind, spoken from bitterness. _At least she _looks_ like a woman._ He'd very nearly broken every regulation in the book and belted the Chief for that one. He thought he'd forgiven and forgotten long ago, but an ember of fury flared at the memory. How anyone could look at Liara and not see a brilliant, beautiful, driven woman... "Not disappointed," he said. She frowned at the obvious lie, and he opted for the truth, pulling the water tube from his mouth to speak more clearly. "I'm _not_ disappointed to see you, Liara. You're one of the best friends I've ever known. You put everything aside to help me through the worst horrors anyone could imagine. I'd _never_ be disappointed in you." He let his eyes drop to the sheets. "If I seem disappointed, well, it's because I let _you_ down."

"I don't understand." But he looked into her eyes, and saw that she did, a little.

He didn't know how to explain himself to her, so he changed the subject. He coughed, looking at their hands, long blue fingers wrapped around his gauze-covered palm. "Have you talked to Garrus?"

"Yes, Shepard." She gave his hand a gentle squeeze. Either he was healing quickly or the painkillers were working; it barely hurt at all. "He told me about how you had to overcome some kind of indoctrination to go through with the mission."

He blinked. Indoctrination? Harbinger had certainly known enough about him to put on a cheap morality play designed to push all his buttons. Hope fluttered to life in his chest, that perhaps he'd truly had no other option than to walk the path he'd chosen, not and still stop the Reapers. It could well be- but no. He'd done what he'd done with full knowledge. He sighed.

"I can't be sure. Maybe... maybe it _was_ trying to indoctrinate me at the end. Hell, _probably_. It must have been desperate. It seemed a bit too eager to give up control of the Reapers, maybe showed its hand." He pulled his hand away. "It doesn't matter."

Her eyes narrowed, her tone shaded with outrage. "Doesn't _matter_? Doesn't _matter_ that this Reaper AI lied to you, manipulated you, broke you down so badly you tell the doctors you want to _die_? If you hadn't already slain that abomination, I'd put a dozen clips into it myself for that."

"I'm sorry. I... said a lot of things after they found me. I didn't mean them. Or if I did, I don't anymore." No need to frighten her with the truth. "But you need to understand. Maybe it lied. Maybe it misled me. But it doesn't matter- I did what I did, knowing what it would mean." He remembered his hesitation at becoming a Spectre. At being placed above the law, subject to no command but the Council. And how he'd tended to circumvent their authority, too, after a while. It was past time he stopped acting like he was above judgment. He shook his head.

"I killed entire species, Liara. There has to be some kind of... judgment, for that. Retribution." He couldn't imagine a future for himself any more. A trial, perhaps. A conviction would be inevitable- he would plead guilty to two counts of genocide. One for the geth, and one for EDI. The only fully realized human-created AI. In a way, his own species' daughter. Perhaps there would be others- the crucible hadn't destroyed the _possibility_ for synthetic life. If the Council would not charge him, then perhaps in time, new-born synthetics would. And justice would be served.

Liara lay a hand on his unburned cheek. "Oh, Shepard," she whispered, "I want to help, if I can." She leaned in close, her pupils expanding rapidly as she tried to peer inside his soul.

He jerked away. "No! No, don't..." The thought was nonsense, but it was honest. _Don't go in there; it's vile_.

She took his face in both hands, her voice patient. "Shepard. Let me help you. I need to see."

He shook his head. "Please. I don't..." he sighed. "I want you to remember who I _was_. I don't want you to see me the way that I do."

"Shepard... I want you to see _yourself_ the way that I see you. The way we all see you. Please."

She had that expression on her face again, patient and tragic. The same look she'd worn after recovering Feron from the Shadow Broker. In his quarters, when he'd explained himself. How he'd thought she'd moved on, and he'd tried to do the same. He owed her.

His eyes burned, and his tension drained away. "All right. All _right_. I'll show you."

_Memory. Eternity._

_"__It is the ideal solution. Now that we know it is possible, it is inevitable."_

_The Catalyst offered what seemed a compelling argument for galactic-scale synthesis of organic and synthetic life. Remade at the molecular level, such life would intuitively understand its kinship. War and strife would vanish in the place of universal brotherhood. He saw organic and synthetic life embracing one another across the galaxy, in at least one instance quite literally. Joker's bones healed, EDI given an organic, chemical aspect to her love for both the pilot and her crew._

_It _seemed_ a compelling argument. It offered to save everyone, every last man and woman, child and machine. It would likely mean an end to death itself as he understood it. It looked so promising, an endless future of union and peace. To a man who had grown up fast and hard in a slum and escaped it only to find a lifetime of conflict among the stars, it seemed positively utopian. _

_Which was why he was so suspicious of it._

_Could he make that choice for every thinking being in the galaxy? Even those who had played no part in the war, who the Reapers would have spared for another fifty thousand years? If he made the decision _for_ them, was he any better than the Reapers? _

_Legion's words had come to him, then. _We believe all life must self-determinate_. He had rewritten the geth heretics, and lamented the choice later as he watched quarian liveships taking fire from the Reaper-dominated, desperate forces of the surviving geth. Civilians, children dying because he had taken the seemingly easier path to salve his conscience. Better, cleaner, to have merely killed them. Rewriting them had felt foul, a violation of spirit far worse than murder. And here was another choice in the same vein. His options, then, were to rob _all_ life of free will, or only the synthetics. _

_He could not control the Reapers, did not trust himself with the power even if it was not some sort of trap. He could not force synthesis upon the entire galaxy against their will. He could not damn an entire species, damn his friend EDI, to death._

_His hand convulsed around the heavy pistol in his hand, an irrational urge to fire it at the holographic monstrosity before him flicking through his mind. A defiant gesture, but it would accomplish nothing. "I can't make any of these choices."_

_The child's face had grimaced, chiding him for his defiance. The holograms swirled around him as it spoke, and he saw what would happen if he rejected all three options. He saw the galaxy fall to the Reapers, its only hope of survival thrown away because of one man's moral rigidity. Earth, Palaven, Thessia, Sur'Kesh burning. On Tuchanka, new hope turning to despair as the Reapers descended from the skies. Metallic groans echoing across the ravaged countryside, crimson beams sweeping over a creche of new-birthed krogan infants. The reclaimed deserts of Rannoch at sunset, fading light painting everything the color of blood even as the bombardment began. Because he had been too stiff, had chosen to take the moral high ground._

_It argued that he could save them all, if only he would allow it to achieve its goal. Its own apotheosis, fueled by his will, somehow. The very agenda it had pursued across countless dizzying eons- synthesis. The ancient monster, demon, wraith had chided him. If he persisted in his mission, he would betray the geth. Betray EDI, and all his friends who had fought and bled and died to bring him to the decision point. The wave of destruction he would unleash would be indiscriminate, slaying _all _synthetic life. It had stared at him, then, and he remembered all the changes Miranda had made to his body. So he would die. Whatever he chose, his own death was certain. It made the decision, if not easy, at least possible._

_There was no moral high ground. Kill one species to save the others, destroy everyone's free will, become a posthuman synthetic tyrant, or let the Reapers continue their mass genocide. Every choice before him was an atrocity. There was no choice he could live with. But he had been rebuilt with extensive cybernetics, and so perhaps he would not have to live with it long.  
He raised the gun._

_And he aimed it at the power juncture that held back the energy that would sweep forth across the galaxy and end the threat of the Reapers for all time. _

_And took a breath, steadying his hand._

_And squeezed the trigger._

_Legion, EDI, I am so sorry._

_The first round spanged off of the conduit, damaging it. He fired again. And again. And again, screaming in horror and despair. Then, fire and pain. And darkness._

Liara held him as he sobbed into her coat, his last barriers broken down by the mental probe and the secret he had thought to take to his grave. He wept for the loss of his friend, for the enormity of his decision, for the loss of the last of his innocence, and damnably, for relief. Relief that it was known, to be certain, but relief as well that she held him close instead of casting him out. He had made the decision, had become perhaps the worst killer in Council history by deliberately orchestrating the genocide of an entire species, but instead of recoiling in horror, his friend still pressed him to her and offered comfort.

After a time, he found a measure of control and withdrew behind his hands. She let him be, busying herself with cleaning her coat where his face had been. Finally, she pulled his hands away, looking into his eyes.

"I knew it had to be something like that. If you'd felt you truly had no choice, you would have come to grips with it much sooner. You never would have let things get this bad. Shepard... if you need me to say it, I will. You. Had. No. Choice. That _thing_ was responsible for an incomprehensible number of deaths, genocides, harvests, beginning with its own creators. All in the name of this _synthesis_." Her eyes smoldered with barely suppressed rage. "I would not, myself, like to be forcibly transmuted into some sort of... organic machine. Nor would anyone I can think of. It was trying to use you, even then. Harbinger _studied_ you, understood you in ways you couldn't anticipate. So it tried to force your hand, to present you with 'options' that only furthered its goals. It couldn't get to you in time to stop you from destroying them, so it used its last best effort to try to sway you into supporting the same mad, murderous idea it's been inflicting on the galaxy since the beginning."

Shepard shook his head. "Maybe. Maybe the offer was legitimate, maybe not. The Reaper intelligence... the Catalyst... it was old, _inconceivably_ old, and alien to everything we know about life and morality. What we'd describe as Evil for lack of a better understanding. Maybe it was trying to indoctrinate me at the end. We'll never know now. It had the chance to tell me anything, to tell me that destroying the Reapers would have destroyed humanity. Earth, at least. It didn't. It told me I would die, due to all my... upgrades. It was wrong about that anyhow. It told me it would destroy the geth, and EDI." His voice sounded impossibly weary to his own ears. "About that, of course, it was right."

Liara pressed her lips to his forehead, more a benediction than a kiss. "You did what you had to, Shepard. _You_ may not believe it, but I _know_ it was trying to corrupt you, change you, convince you to abandon your mission. But you stayed strong, even though it nearly broke you. It had to be done, and you did it. And saved us all, _again_. And even came back to us."

He felt hollow, a lanced boil drained of corruption. "I _wanted_ to die, Liara. For what I had done, for what I'd _had _to do. Needed to die, to let go, to have some kind of price for my crimes. What kind of justice allows a person who commits pre-meditated genocide live?" What kind of justice, for that matter, let him see his friends again, and take comfort in their arms?

Liara shook her head. "Justice? What kind of_ justice_ demands a good man sacrifice his self-worth to save the galaxy? What kind of _justice_ rewards the greatest hero I've ever known by nearly breaking his mind? Sometimes the price is high, maybe even too high, but you achieved _justice_ for all the countless trillions who fell before and the billions who died in _this_ war when you pulled that trigger." She took a shuddering breath. "So you wanted to die. When you woke up in the ruin of the Council Tower, you still had your gun. But you dragged yourself four kilometers to what was left of Huerta Memorial and- I'm told -essentially _stapled_ yourself back together. So, Shepard, what changed your mind?"

He looked away, and she smiled. "I thought it might be something like that. I'd be lying if I said I hadn't been a little jealous now and again... but I really _am_ happy for the two of you."

"I know." He swallowed, his throat suddenly congested with another surge of emotion. "You're... you're more than a good friend, Liara. You, and Garrus, and Tali. I love all three of you. Just..."

"Just not quite in the same way. I understand completely. You and I... well. We had something... fast, exciting, dangerous, intense. Youthful." She lay a hand on his cheek. "A lot has happened. We've changed. But I'll always be here for you. You're the best friend I've ever known."

He smiled, genuine happiness budding in his chest for the first time in recent memory. "I know, Liara. I feel the same way."

She laughed. "I've been all over the inside of your mind, Shepard. Of course I know that." She wiped at his eyes and his cheeks. "There. Now you're all cleaned up for Garrus. He's been very patient, but he wants some time with you, too. I'll be back tomorrow."


	3. Chapter 3

Afternoons were for visitors, Garrus and Liara every day, and briefer visits or at least messages from practically everyone. Vega had complimented him on his scars, suggested a few tattoos that might work with the raised tissue. Doctor Chakwas had laughingly complained about his ham-fisted field sutures. Wrex had expressed hearty approval, of course, as had Grunt. Cortez had cried so hard and so long in relief that Shepard half thought his own recent bouts with tears were almost normal. Javik had written to say goodbye, that he was going to Tuchanka for a time and then... who could say. Maybe he'd decide to live in peace for the first time in his life. Even Jack had complimented him, in a way, saying "At least you don't look like such a pussy anymore." His sleep was troubled less often by dreams, and when they came, they were not always elaborate subconscious plays of contrition as they had been for so long.

And then, finally, she arrived.

Shepard woke from a light doze to find her clambering onto the bed alongside him without a word, collapsing against his side and shaking inside her suit. Tali. Some broken part of him still wanted to push her away, to keep her safe, to spite himself, deny the comfort of her presence. But he knew she needed him to hold _her_, just as he'd known what to do when she found her father's body on the Alarei, and so he did without hesitation.

"It _is _you. You really are alive," she whispered. "I never stopped believing, even when everyone said you had to be gone, but..." He saw her blinking furiously, the gleam of her eyes flickering in the darkness of her helmet. "When they said they found you, that you were going to be all right, part of me wondered if they were just saying it to keep me _calm_."

He gave her shoulders a squeeze, reassuring himself of the wonderful reality of her. It was more than he could have hoped for, more certainly than he deserved, but she was here. Finally, she was here. "I know exactly what you mean."

Her eyes crinkled, the vaguest outline of a smile showing above her respirator. "I know, I heard you kept yelling and breaking things until Doctor Chakwas came by to tell you herself how I was doing." She ran a gloved hand along his arm. "I wish I could have come earlier. You know how I like watching you yell at people."

A slow, dumbly happy feeling stole over him and he decided to try a smile. With the scars, with the wide, staring eyes above the dark circles of chronic insomnia, it must have looked ghastly. The smile collapsed under its own weight. "The scars-"

She snorted. "Keelah, if you think I care about that-" she shook her head. "_You _didn't much care about looks. Why should I?"

He blinked. "What are you talking about? You're one of the most-"

She put a finger over his lips. "I know how much the mask hides. You took a chance."

"Not like you did."

She shrugged. "I said I could make it work, and you decided to trust me. That alone... no one has ever trusted me the way that you do." She touched her helmet to his forehead, then pulled back and studied his face. "They're really not that bad, you know. The worst of it is here, where some of your old implants burned a hole through the cheek and you did the field dressing. But I wouldn't care even if it was a hundred times worse. You still look like you, if that's what you're worried about. Just... a little worn around the edges. You've earned it." She smoothed his forehead with her palm. "I could have looked like practically anything. Why _did_ you take that chance? I'm not complaining, just... wondering."

A thousand answers raced through his mind. Seeing through any alien features to the woman behind them, her strength and her compassion. Her loyalty, her determination, her voice, her genius. Her wit and sense of humor, her obviously attractive build. The same human curiosity that perennially drove game show contestants to choose the mystery prize over known quantities. All accurate, in their way, but not True. He looked into her eyes and managed a smile. It was hesitant, shot through with melancholy and pain, but it was genuine.

"Because I love you, Tali." He held her close for a moment, then muttered into her ear. "Besides, I figured I could always turn the lights off if I had to."

She burst out laughing, and he marveled at how good and _right_ it felt to finally have her close. In spite of everything, in spite of war and death and terror and all the terrible things he had done, it was somehow _right_. Her laughter grew choked with tears, and he managed to squeeze her shoulders. The thick webs of newly-formed keloid across the backs of his hands twinged, but he didn't care. He held her, taking in every sense. The feel of her suit, the fabric-smell of her hood. She was here.

"How bad was it?" he asked.

She went still. "It was... close. I guess Garrus already told you that. The wounds weren't _so_ bad- a bit of shrapnel and some blood loss, a concussion. Broken arm. But the suit ruptures... I got pretty sick." Her voice was soft, fragile. "All I could think about was Kal'Reegar, dying on Palaven as his body reacted to turian bacteria. Knowing he was dying, and fighting on anyhow. I tried to get to you. I thought I was going anyway, I wanted to die at your side. But with the concussion and my arm and the bleeding, I wasn't strong enough. Garrus just held me and let me hit him until he got me to Doctor Chakwas."

He held her close, resting his chin on top of her helmet. "I owe him for that. More than I'll ever be able to repay. He kept you safe when I couldn't." His mind shied from what he would have done if he'd come back to find her gone. Nothing worth thinking about now that she was here. He peered into the darkness behind her faceplate, his head tilting slightly. It was hard to tell. Was she... "Tali... are you _blushing_?"

She ducked her chin. "Well. Um. The doctors on the Tonbay seem to think that I only survived because I'd already been exposed to... human... pathogens." She coughed. "Um. You know. Before."

They looked at each other for a long moment, then erupted in shared laughter. She fell against his chest, bringing a twinge to his damaged lungs, but he didn't stop laughing until she finally did. He rested a hand on the back of her hood, recognizing the slightly yielding feel of her hair under the suit. He took her hand in his, marveling at the three fingers common to almost every other species. Turians. Salarians. Quarians, obviously.

Geth.

His thoughts darkened, guilt and self-loathing washing over his mind. She felt it in the tension of his shoulders, a slight pulling-away, and she looked into his face. "I talked to Garrus," she said. "And Liara."

He felt the blood drain from his face. "Oh."

"Shepard... I understand." She ran the fingers of her hand across his undamaged cheek. "I know you did what you had to do, even if you don't. Even if you're right and it _wasn't_ just some kind of indoctrination trick, I still think you did the best thing for everyone."

"Not everyone." His stomach was a chasm, hollow and churning. His heart felt like a brick in his chest.

"Everyone. You had the chance to _end _it. Not just for now, not just for fifty thousand years, but _forever_. If you hadn't taken it... _that_ would have been a betrayal. Of everyone. But you did it. You stopped them. And we're free." She cupped the back of his neck and touched her faceplate to his forehead with a slight thunk, marring the intimacy of the gesture. "Bosh'tet! _Damn_ this suit."

He felt his chest hitch with faint laughter and let her hold him. "There'll be time later." For the first time, he found himself looking forward to going on living. "Won't there?"

"You'd better believe it. I'm never letting you go again." She mock-punched him in the shoulder. "Scaring me like that, again. Even though I _specifically_ told you not to after Despoina."

_The Leviathans_. "...Speaking of?"

She shook her head. "Gone, as far as anyone knows. Back into hiding, or..."

He frowned. "Yeah. Or."

Her arms tensed. "Let it be someone else's problem for a while, Shepard." He nodded, and she relaxed, stroking his cheek with her knuckles.

His eyes teared up again. He was half convinced they were broken somehow, stuck like a leaky faucet. "How can you..." He passed a hand across them and cleared his throat. "I'm sorry. I just... knowing what I've done... and you still... still... can you still..." He couldn't articulate it, for fear it would prove untrue.

"I still love you. Always. I can say it, even if you can't. Even if you're too broken-down see it, you're a hero to absolutely everyone out there. And... I think you'll be glad to know Admiral Koris and I are working on trying to reactivate some of the geth servers. And once you're back on the Normandy, you can get me access to EDI's core. I... can't promise anything."

Back on the Normandy. He hadn't even thought about that. It wouldn't undo his decision, but if they could get even a single geth server operational again... not to mention EDI. "I'll get you that access whenever you want it. I guess Hackett owes me a couple. But I... I don't think I'm fit for command anymore, Tali. Even if I come to live with this..." He closed his eyes. "I'm not exactly a model of emotional stability."

She scoffed. "Who is? No one _I've_ ever much liked. You were always a little crazy, Shepard. It's just that now even _you_ can see it." He smiled weakly at the joke, and she changed tactics. "I told you earlier that I understand why you thought you wanted to die. And I do. If you hadn't saved my people back on Rannoch I... I can't imagine going on without them." He shuddered, remembering the terrible pressure, the _need_ to face down a Reaper with nothing but a laser targeter and whatever balls he could scrape together or the quarians would _die_. "But you were there, and you saved us. There was no one there to save you. After you woke up, I mean."

He looked into the gleam of her eyes, and considered giving her half of the truth. But no. She had been there for him in all his darkest moments, had stood beside him even when he'd worn a Cerberus logo. More even than Liara had done. She deserved to know it all.

_He took a ragged breath. Another. The faintly flickering embers in the aftermath of an electrical fire, from the smell, gave enough light to see. He dragged himself to his feet, blood pattering to the floor from his many wounds. It was bad, from the feel. The bleeding had slowed to a trickle long hours ago, or he'd have bled out before waking up. The pain hit him and he screamed, then memory hit him and he screamed twice as loud._

_Shock blunted enough of the pain that he could walk, after a fashion, lurching between crawling on his knees and walking on his knuckles like an elcor with short bouts of tottering along on his feet. He surged around the room in a caricature of motion, limbs stiff with burns and failing cybernetics. He staggered and fell, kicking through rubble and roaring his remorse into the uncaring silence of the ravaged Citadel. There were no words, only raw horror and despair. At what he'd done. At his survival. _

_He saw the battered Carnifex and lunged for it. He put the barrel into his mouth, tasting the bland polymer of the casing, the coppery blood-taste of the ferromagnetic barrel core. The tip poked into his soft palate. It would only take a tiny bit of pressure on the trigger. But he sobbed, screamed, and pointed it at the floor. His face convulsed and he put it to his temple. Contemplated. To paint the walls with the brain that had chosen to murder entire species. It appealed. The barrel dipped, raised, dipped. Pressed into the hollow of his temple. He screamed again, his throat raw, his face a bloody ruin, anguish echoing into the distance._

_And lowered the gun._

_They'd find him. They'd find him in the rubble, eventually, the gun in his hand or on the floor at his feet, the wound indisputably self-inflicted. They'd know him as not only a genocide, but as a coward. Samara might understand. Garrus would not. Liara would not. The galaxy would not. Tali most definitely would not._

_He stared down at his ruined body, mangled and scorched almost beyond recognition. Poked the gun at a few of his wounds. He could... but no. There would be questions, an investigation. There would be experts. They would know. _

_Then Tali would find out. There wasn't a database made she couldn't find her way into. _

_Shepard knew he wasn't thinking clearly. To worry that she wouldn't forgive him for his _suicide_ when he was flagrantly guilty of multiple _genocides_ was not a good sign. He knew he'd lost a great deal of blood. And that the cybernetics that had made him stronger, faster, tougher had also been very important to the proper function of his vital organs. Without them, he didn't know how long he had. Long enough for a S&R shuttle to find him? Maybe. Probably not. All right, almost certainly not. _

_So he would die, after all. And he would be spared the ignominy of a suicide as his kidneys shut down or his brain slowly suffocated from a paucity of oxygen. No one would ever know that he'd had any other option than to blow the Crucible, killing all synthetic life in the galaxy. He'd be remembered as a hero. More than he deserved, but perhaps a mercy to his friends. Just as he would take the former Admiral Zorah's war crimes to his grave to protect Tali, he could take his own into oblivion as well. _

_He sat down, and waited to die._

_His friends' faces swam in his mind as he waited. Wrex, clasping his hand and calling him a true brother. Mordin, singing. Mordin, his face shining with resolve and peace, riding away in the elevator to the top of the Shroud tower. Garrus, grinning as he cut loose with another dose of gallows humor. Liara, halfway between a smile and a wince. Tali, as he removed her faceplate for the first time. On the Normandy's ramp as he said goodbye for the last._

_Come back to me._

_On his feet and moving again. Talking to himself as he picked his way through the rubble. Several times, he fell, opening half-scabbed wounds, pushing shrapnel deeper into his tissues. He wept bitterly, moaned and grumbled, and pulled himself back to his feet. Boots skittering across loose rubble, landing with a bone-breaking thud, agony as something in his face gave way and flopped down onto his cheek. No, it _was_ his cheek. Blasted open and peeled over. He tried to push it back into place, his mind fogging. Can't do that, soldier. Nothing to keep it in place. Faces are not made of glue._

_His conscious mind hadn't really decided where to go. It had taken a holiday, drifting away even as his life's blood oozed and dribbled from countless wounds. Part of him observed him moving, muttering, laughing, sobbing, screaming, and took note of his madness with clinical neutrality. Another part of him was badly frightened, wondering if he would ever be remotely sane again. Not that it probably mattered, much. He kept moving._

_There. The piles of corpses that the Reapers had brought up from Earth, or that the keepers had sequestered in the Council Tower for some nebulous purpose. He had a sudden image of his future, sitting amid the dead if he managed to stop bleeding but if the shuttles took too long to get to him. Mouth clogged with unspeakable meat, eyes wide and staring like Cronus in Goya's painting, mind utterly shattered. "Food source," he muttered, laughing and sobbing. The bodies meant he had found the exit. _

_He emerged onto the ruin of the Presidium. The Citadel's defenders had put up a tremendous struggle. In either direction, receding up the sloping horizon, he saw fires, smoke, bodies. Reaper creatures lay insensate, some dead of obvious wounds, others dead of no wound at all that he could see. He looked past the bulk of the Crucible into the black, and saw a Reaper capital ship drifting through space, dark. True, then. About this one thing, perhaps, the primeval monstrosity had not lied. _

_They were dead._

_His feet slipped in blood as he passed scores of fallen Citadel defenders. His vision narrowed to a grey tunnel, bringing him only snapshots as he walked. A C-Sec uniform, fried almost black. A salarian child's face, blank and uncomprehending. Piles of dead, heaped and burning to prevent their use by the Enemy. _

_He fell for the thousandth time into something cool and wet. A melange of color, the slapdash finger-painting of a psychotic child- sprays of blood in blue, purple, red, green. He shuddered. Apt. A psychotic child of a sort _had_ painted there, after all._

_A while later, he realized where he was going. "Now arriving at... Huerta Memorial," he mumbled, then laughed. The hospital was probably a loss, one wall almost entirely missing, the doors vanished in the explosion that had ripped open the elevator access. But he had to try. He picked his way inside, heart sinking as he noted the bodies of a dozen medical personnel and half as many C-Sec piled up at the end of the lobby as they had tried to keep the Reaper creatures out. From the look, it had been the husks that had finally gotten through. _

_He found some medi-gel and tried to apply it to his face, and lost the next several seconds to blinding white light. When he could think again, the sound of his own scream echoed in his ears and his face felt like someone was peeling it away with a hot razor. "Too big a job for medi-gel anyhow," he muttered, voice eerily brimming with cheer. Going a little crazy, Shepard. "That's okay, Shepard." Never were too stable, were you? "You know better than most. Led the meanest kids on the south side for five years before MacAllister got you by the collar and put you to work." Human supremacist drugged-out little sadists. And you were the meanest of them all, you know. Even then. "Maybe, maybe."_

_There was a suture gun lying under an overturned desk. That would do. He pulled up his shirt and took a look at the wounds. He tried to count them, but his mind went fuzzy after just seven. Best get to it. He pointed the business end at the biggest one. Double-checked to make sure it wasn't the Carnifex. Still just a suture gun. Nodded. Pulled the trigger._

_His throat was going to tear itself right open if he kept screaming like this._

_He kept at it until he passed out, then snapped awake and continued until it was done. He couldn't see his back, so all he could do was hope there weren't any unpleasant surprises. He'd been facing the power conduit when it blew, so he was probably all right there. Unless one of the bits of shrapnel had gone clean through and left a nice big exit wound. He tried to whistle a bit of a tune, blew ice-cold air across his cheek and screamed again._

_Right, the face. He looked around for a reflective surface, but everything seemed covered in soot or blood or both. Have to do it by feel, then. He lifted up the fallen flap of his cheek and put the suture gun to his face. Pulled the trigger. The pain was overwhelming, an icy spike that shot through everything from his skull to his testicles, but after a moment he was able to do it again. And again._

_What was he _doing_? "Gonna try to live, Shep." Whatever for? So they can find out what you did? "Perform a _damnatio memoriae _if I'm lucky_." _Seriously? Latin, Shepard? "Gotta love that Alliance officer school." Quit fucking with me, what the hell do you have to live for?_

_Come back to me._

_You know you can't do that. Even if you get out of here, the man she loves is dead. You murdered him when you decided to murder the geth. And EDI. Murderer. Genocide. War Criminal. Worse than any other the human race has ever produced. No mean accomplishment. Genghis Khan? Timur the Lame? Stalin? Hitler? Amateurs. The man she loved fought against people like you with all his being. You're not what she wants, you're not what she needs. Just lie down, pull out the sutures, and give her peace._

_"__Shut... up." Two more sutures in his face. He rummaged through an overturned emergency kit, found a dose of sanguigen, popped it in his neck. After a few minutes, some of his sutures started to leak a little. It was a good sign, his body was making blood. Filling him back up. The empty feeling did not go away though, nor did he expect it to, ever again._

_After a while, his thoughts came easier. It was not a mercy. But it allowed him to climb over the rubble to the second floor, and find a comm terminal that still worked. He'd gotten through to the Everest on the first try, found a way to keep his voice steady. Hadn't reacted to the cheers in the background as Hackett had congratulated him on a job well done. Half an hour later, and they'd come for him._

_It had taken him thirty hours to crawl four kilometers, leaking blood all the way. The S&R people had complimented him on his will to live, and he'd terrified them by bursting into scalding hot tears and insane peals of laughter._

Tali had wept silently as he spoke, and now her voice was distorted by both the breathing mask and emotion. "But you did it. You came back to me."

He nodded. "It took everything I had to put the gun down. Then to keep moving when I wanted to just lie down and have an end. And then to call for help. To face other people again... to face _you_." He dropped his eyes. "I thought it would be better for you if I died. But then I thought about it and realized I was being selfish. _You_ get to decide what's best for you, not me."

"Thank you." She cleared her throat, and continued. "My father tried to decide what was _best_ for me. So did Admiral Raan, at my trial. At least Zaal'Koris was trying to decide what was best for the _fleet_. Well, _I_ know what's best for me." She bumped his chin and smiled, her eyes crinkling.

"I'll... it's going to be a while before I'm much good to anyone, Tali. Pulling myself together is going to be..." He swallowed, composed himself. Tried again. "I'll try, though. For you, I'll try." He closed his eyes.

"I know. I talked to the doctors, too. They said they've come a long way treating human psychological problems resulting from war-"

"We've certainly had enough of them."

"-_and_ they can put you on some medication to moderate the mood swings, the depression. But the best thing for you, I think, is to know that your friends all have your back. We all care about you. We support you, and your decisions. We love you. _I_ love you."

He knew he would carry the self-loathing, the despair, as long as he lived. It might grow less keen, he might even forget from time to time, but it would be there, waiting. She deserved someone whole, sound, not the broken ruin he'd become. But she wanted him, and so for her, he could try to be what she deserved. "And I love you. And I'll try like hell to fight this. When I'm with you, it's easier. It's just... the minute I'm alone with my thoughts-"

"You are _never_ alone."

He smiled again, awed and delighted that she could still love him, even as he was. The guilt _did_ seem less, when he was with her. Bearable, for her sake if not his own. "Tali... you remember when I told you about Earth. Growing up there, on the streets."

"I wouldn't forget that. It's when I first started to see you as a man, instead of a Commander. It reminded me of the way people treat quarians. Treated quarians. Before you came along." She smiled. "I thought if you could understand us, not pity us, not scorn us, just... understand, then maybe you could see me as more than just the suit. It went a long way toward explaining how mad you got at that C-Sec officer who was harassing Lia'Vael. And then you said-"

"Garrus was the first cop I ever liked. Yeah." They shared a grin. "And then he quit." He looked down. "Well. Earth was where I was born. Where my parents died. Where I lived until I was sixteen. But it was never home. After I was arrested, and picked military service over hard labor... and the Alliance aptitude tests shunted me into special forces training... I lived lots of places. None of them were home, either. Not even the Normandy. Or the second Normandy, for that matter."

She pulled herself closer and cupped his face with her hand. "Shepard..."

He looked into her eyes. "I'm home."


	4. Chapter 4

_The boy fled down dim nightmare hallways of blood and fire, laughter echoing behind. He set his jaw and drew the Carnifex, eyes fixed on the grey-white of the child's sweatshirt with gunslinger intensity. The flashlight swept aside darkness like cobwebs, drifting in scattered motes that swirled behind him as he charged after the boy. The monster._

_The halls narrowed, rounded, taking on more organic shapes. Amber-yellow objects gleamed in side-chambers as he bolted past. A thin, rattling hiss rose in the distance, and the child ran faster. The Collectors. Implacable, inexorable, Shepard followed. _

_He skidded to a halt in the center of a vast, domed chamber. The amber-like stasis pods surmounting the walls were all damnably full. Everywhere he looked, he saw their faces. Those he'd been too slow to save. Those he'd failed, all the way from Virmire to Rannoch. He spotted the unmistakable silhouette of countless geth platforms, and fought back a groan._

_The ceiling shook, and a glistening black shape moved in the darkness. The crimson gleam of eyes, a larger node in the chest where a heart should be. It wore the skeletal form of the nascent human Reaper, but he knew it for what it truly was. The child._

_The voice thrummed through his skull, deep and buzzing and unspeakably cold. _

_YOU WILL REMAIN WITH ME. I WILL SAVOR YOUR PAIN. _

_Harbinger. Two of the pods released their captives onto the honeycombed floor. Legion, and Mordin. Synthetic, and organic. Two more pods cycled and opened. EDI, and Tali. He screamed and tried to go to her, but a whiplike tendril speared forth from the darkness, impaling him and hoisting him aloft, bearing him into the rictus grin of the Enemy._

_IT PLEASES ME TO PERMIT YOU TO SAVE _ONE_ OF THEM. CHOOSE. OR ALL WILL JOIN ME IN THE HARVEST._

He fastened the top of the uniform, watching himself in the mirror. The scars were prominent, but healing. His eyes were the worst. Haunted, shadowed, hollow, vague. _They call that the old thousand-yard stare, kid_. He remembered liking his eyes, how they had once struck him as intent, sharp, focused. No longer.

Garrus nodded over folded arms. "Narcissism's a new vice for you, Shepard."

"Well, we can't all be heart-breakers like you." The turian chuckled as Shepard resumed his self-examination. The uniform was a bit big after months of hospital food and muscle atrophy. It felt foreign on him, like nothing he belonged to anymore, or deserved to belong to, but it was what was expected of him.

He had a feeling that much of his life for the next few years would be living up to others' expectations in public and falling apart in private. But he owed it to them- to all who had fought and struggled and died in this impossibly destructive war -to pull himself together and give them what they all wanted.

A hero.

It felt unspeakably wrong, to put a veneer of glory and valor on his actions. He knew what he'd done, and he knew with calm certainty that it would always haunt him. His closest friends knew, and even if they didn't quite understand his guilt, they were patient with it. No one else was to know- on that point Hackett had been insistent. Not that the grizzled old Admiral had doubted for a second that the parade of choices had all been a last-ditch attempt to indoctrinate him, but he seemed to understand that Shepard would never be convinced.

He felt frail, ephemeral. Like his old persona was a dandelion awaiting a strong breeze. Nothing to be done about that, now. He made faces at the mirror, trying out which would look best for the camera.

"I wouldn't try that one unless miss al-Jalani turns up," Garrus said. "It might scare her off."

Shepard chuckled, wincing. He looked at the left breast, at the medals he'd earned by being stubborn or lucky or stupid. At the empty spot where the new medals would go. About those, too, Hackett had been quite insistent. _Don't think of them as yours, then. They are, you've earned them and then some... but they also belong to _everyone_who fought in this war. So you're going to stand there and let me pin these damn things on your chest in front of the cameras if I have to sedate you myself. _He finally found a good expression. It looked calm, resolute, if you didn't look too closely. He tried a few smiles, found a thin one that didn't do anything too ghastly to his cheek.

"Not bad. Almost looks like the old Shepard," Garrus said. "Been a while since I've seen him."

He nodded at the mirror. It was a start. His legs were shaky, but the physical therapy was working its slow, torturous magic. He'd be able to stand for the ceremony, after all. His stomach felt like it was doing backflips. "I really don't want to do this."

"What, the ceremony? How hard can it be? Stand there basking in everyone's adulation for a half hour, make a few remarks about how you couldn't have done it without your devastatingly handsome turian XO, and then go knock back a few rounds." His mandibles twitched in a half-smile.

Shepard shook his head, eyes lost in the shadow of his brow. "Yeah, yeah. You can laugh it up, but I'm serious. Having a hard time seeing how I'm going to get through this thing. You know Joker's going to be there. I'm going to have to look him in the eye, probably shake his hand. And I can't even tell him."

"No, you can't. Even if Hackett hadn't given you orders on that one, I'd be against it. There are things that boy needs to believe if he's going to be able to sleep, people he needs to believe _in_. He might very well understand, but then again he might not. And either way, he'd never be able to let it go." Garrus lay a hand on his shoulder, gave a quick two-fingered squeeze. "The Alliance has enough soldiers who can't forget."

Shepard nodded. "It's not just Joker, though. There's going to be quite the crowd, I guess. All the council races sent representatives. Wrex and Bakara are here. The quarian admiralty board."

"The quarian admiralty board? You think you can avoid punching any of them this time?"

Shepard flushed. Not his finest moment. "So long as Han'Gerrel doesn't shoot at my friends, I don't think that'll be a problem. No promises though if he starts doing anything to endanger the civilian fleet." He adjusted his collar in the mirror. "Why the hell are they doing this, Garrus? It's not for me, not really. Why make me pull on my uniform and prop me up in front of a mob of self-satisfied very-important-idiots so they can clap for the cameras? Most of them can't stand me, and frankly the feeling's mutual."

"There's an old saying, I guess humans have a similar one, about how you judge a man by the quality of his enemies. You've pissed off pretty much the entire ruling class of the galaxy, that's got to count for something. Not to mention the Reapers. Putting an end to who knows how many cycles of war and harvest? That's gotta be worth a medal or two."

Shepard dipped his head, taking a moment to master his emotions. "Thanks, Garrus. I think I'd rather be judged by the quality of my friends, though." He turned around and pulled the looming turian into a hug. His arms ached, and the long muscles in his legs, but he didn't much care. Whatever else had happened, whatever he'd had to do, he was one of the luckiest people in the galaxy.

Garrus patted his shoulders awkwardly. "Oh. Oh my. I didn't know you had a thing for scars. Poor Tali will be heartbroken."

Shepard laughed and pushed him away. "You really are an asshole, Garrus. Never change."

"Yeah, well, I learned from the best." The two grinned at each other.

"Got a message from Liara," Garrus continued, clearing his throat. "Says she's running a bit late with all the repair traffic, detours and redirects and that they'd better not start without her."

Shepard turned back to the mirror to smooth his uniform and smiled at Garrus' reflection. "We'd better stall them, then, don't you think? I don't think anyone wants to discover what a motivated Shadow Broker can do to the careers of all those assembled diplomats."

Garrus twitched a brow plate. "I don't know, _I_ might want to see that."

There was a knock at the door, and Tali stepped into the room, gleaming in her gold-accented Admiral's suit. She gave Garrus a quick hug over his half-hearted protests, then made her way to him. His ribs creaked in her arms, but they held up reasonably well under the assault.

The turian caught Tali's eyes in some unspoken conspiracy, nodded slightly, and coughed. "I'll ah... I'll go stall them. For Liara." He paused at the door, opening his mouth as if to say something more, then merely shook his head and went out.

They held each other. He traced lazy circles on her back, staring into her eyes and smiling. It was more than he could ever have hoped for. It was vastly more than he felt he deserved. But it was everything he wanted, and more importantly it was what _she_ wanted. Though there was something in her eyes, something on her mind. He felt his stomach sink as he contemplated the possibilities. "I always did like this suit," he said.

"Thank you. We can't all pull off our fancy uniforms like _you_ do," she said, putting a hand on his chest. "But I try." The look in her eyes gave way to one he was more familiar with, and he relaxed. He pressed his face against her helmet, miming a passionate kiss, fogging it hopelessly. She giggled and smacked his shoulder. "Later, Shepard. I promise. But you need _some_ reason to get out of this place."

"Aye aye, Admiral." She suddenly looked sheepish, as nervous as when she'd first proposed the idea of a relationship. Something was very definitely on her mind. "What?"

"I need you to know that I'll always be here for you."

"I know."

She sighed. "No. You don't. You thought I'd judge you, turn you away. I need you to _know_ that I'm here for you, to the end. No matter what happens." His heart sank, anticipating a 'but.' "I've... ah... been looking into human bonding rituals..." She trailed off. "I thought maybe, if you wanted, we could talk to Admiral Hackett... unless you want a religious official... um... keelah, I'm making a hash of this."

He stared at her in shock. Then, slowly, he smiled. "Yes. _Yes._"

"Yes I'm making a hash of this?" Her voice had gone up, tinged with near panic.

"Yes, I'll marry you. Bond with you. Whatever you want to call it, however you want to codify it. I love you, Tali'Zorah vas Normandy. I want to be with you forever, or as close as we can get." He was grinning. It had to look appalling, and he couldn't bring himself to care. "Garrus _knew_, that son of a bitch? To hell with it, he can still be my best man. I'm feeling generous. Get Garrus back in here. Call Liara, call everyone. To hell with them, call _Hackett_, let's do this right now."

She laughed, relieved. "It can wait until after this ceremony, after they release you. And wipe that smirk off your face, _that_ can wait until after the big ceremony, too."

He smiled. "Tyrant."

She glanced around, slyly. "Well... this _is_ a hospital. It's about as sterile as we're going to find."

He reached for the faceplate as she began unfastening his uniform. There was a knock at the door, and a cough, before it opened. He dropped his hands and sighed, even as Tali chuckled to herself. God _damn_ it.

Garrus opened the door with a grin. _Asshole_. "Got a message from Liara; she's five minutes out. You know, most people put more clothes _on_ when they have to give a speech." At least he'd learned to knock.

Tali shook her head. "I've been trying to help him with his uniform, but I'm afraid it's hopeless."

Garrus turned to her, and she nodded almost imperceptibly. His grin widened. "Well, you can tell me the news afterward. Fix that coat and come on. They're ready for you."

...

The councilors each gave a speech in excess of an hour. Shepard's legs began aching halfway through Valern's speech, but he held his expression and nodded at the right parts. Tali gave his hand a squeeze, and he found it easier to ignore his discomfort for a while. Sparatus took the podium next, listing the heroes and vessels- fallen or otherwise -who had brought them through the war alive. It was well done, artfully spoken in a high manner, almost like the roll of ships in the Iliad. Almost as dull, too.

Councilor Tevos focused on the rebuilding efforts, and conspicuously failed to mention the prothean beacon in the Temple of Athame. He sighed, tired in his bones of the endless secrets, the mistrust, the creeping division that had nearly undone the entire galaxy. Not four months since the Reapers' fall, and they were already back to their old games. Idiots.

Hackett rose and spoke briefly of the need for unity, the long work of repairing all the known relays and of the tremendous strength the people of the galaxy, united, had shown. The old man was firm, commanding, and laconic, with not a word wasted. The contrast with the councilors made itself, and Shepard saw opinion slide gradually in favor of the old man. Of humanity, who had produced not only the core of the fleet that had liberated the galaxy, but whose officer corps evinced an embarrassment of riches.

Then, it was his turn.

Admiral Hackett introduced the crew of the Normandy, and her Commander. He rose unsteadily, legs stiff from the hours in the hard chair. For a moment, his left knee threatened to buckle, but then Tali and Garrus were at his side, where they had always been when he needed them. They walked him to the podium, then stood back as the crowd surged to its feet and applauded. He waited thirty seconds, counting them silently and schooling his face to stillness. If he imagined that they cheered for the crew behind him, instead of for him alone, he found he could bear it.

"Thank you," he said, and they began to calm. "Thank you."

"I'm not known for my speeches," he said, glancing at Tali. She quickly covered her respirator and turned off the sound reproduction, but he saw her shoulders quaking with laughter. Garrus shook his head slightly, his eyes shining. Liara chewed on a knuckle. "so I'll keep this brief. We lost a lot of good people in this war. Entire worlds. Entire _species_. All of them lost in the hope that their sacrifice would mean freedom for the rest of us.

We do not dare betray that sacrifice.

We all have different faiths, different values, different histories. Sometimes those differences seem almost insurmountable- ancient wounds left to fester for thousands of years, core beliefs at odds. But upon two things we must agree, or their sacrifice was in vain.

First, that all life is sacred. Organic or synthetic, levo or dextro-chirality, born to every advantage or to none. Because one day, perhaps soon, perhaps not, one of us will create synthetic life anew. Or discover a new species through a previously unexplored relay. And unless we treat that life with the dignity and respect due something sacred, then our bloody history will repeat itself again.

Second, that all those who fought together against the Reapers remember that sense of camaraderie and cooperation. With each other, we did what no cycle before could do. We fought the Reapers for every system, every world, every city and every block, and we held them back long enough to undertake the largest construction project in history. We won. The cost was high, higher than any of us would have thought we could pay. But together, we stood strong, and we achieved a victory millions of years in the making.

For the honor of the fallen, for the sake of children yet to come, we must face the future as we faced this threat. Together."

The councilors stood and approached him across the stage as the crowd applauded. Hackett stepped forward with a smile, and he stood still while the Admiral pinned the medals on his uniform. They locked eyes for a moment, Shepard raising an eyebrow. _You sure about this?_ Hackett nodded, a tiny dip of his chin.

It was Tevos who spoke. Of course it was Tevos.

"Commander Shepard. Humanity finds itself without a councilor. In light of your unparalleled service, the Council calls upon you to once again recommend an exemplar of your species to serve in this capacity." She smiled at him, her eyes flashing. _Just so long as you don't recommend yourself_, they seemed to say.

He glanced to the audience, at Wrex and Bakara. He looked to his crew. At Vega, and Cortez, and Joker. At Liara, and Garrus, and Tali. And winked.

His voice came out strong, resolute, with a note of humor that sounded like the old Shepard even to his ears. "Thank you, Councilor. But humanity didn't win this war by itself." She nodded. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw other dignitaries nod sagely. He paused a moment, then let them have it. "And so until such a time as the quarians and the krogan take their rightful place on the Council, humanity respectfully declines."

The room was dead silent save the odd gasp, and booming from the front row, Wrex's "HAH!"

The councilor blinked, the words sinking in. She started to open her mouth, but he merely saluted the council, saluted Admiral Hackett, and turned to his crew. They rose as one, snapping off a myriad of salutes and a booming "OOO-RAH!" Shepard let his hand fall, turned from the gaping asari councilor, and walked toward the exit. Tali met him and took his arm, eyes shining in her helmet.

"You really enjoyed that." She, Garrus, and Liara had known, as had the Admiral, of course. Joker was still gawping like a landed fish, though.

He grinned. "You know, I really did. Can you imagine what they would have done if Hackett hadn't talked me out of insisting on council seats for everyone else?"

"One battle at a time, there. I'm not so sure the turians are willing to let the volus go anyhow. Nor the hanar the drell."

He put an arm around her waist and pulled her in close as they walked past screaming reporters, ignoring all of them equally. "They will. I've got a few speeches left in me. You'll get to watch me yell a few more times before we make this right." He craned his neck back, catching a last glimpse of Garrus. The sly son of a bitch was giving him a thumbs-up with both hands, a gesture he'd almost certainly picked up from Vega. Shepard chuckled.

She tucked her head into his chest and steered him toward the docking ring. "Come on, Shepard. Let's go home."

"I am a ruined vessel of sorrow and regret, but I am free."  
- Samara


End file.
